Inside the CFL: Blue Bombers and Ticats meet in flashback Grey Cup

By GRAHAM KELLY on December 9, 2021.

The first 30 years of the second half of the 20th Century featured tremendous rivalries in the CFL – Montreal and Edmonton in the 1950s and 70s, Saskatchewan and Ottawa in the 60s. But the greatest battle of gridiron wills was between the Winnipeg Blue Bombers of Bud Grant and the Ralph Sazio/Jim Trimble Hamilton Tiger-Cats.

Six times in nine years they met for the Grey Cup, with the Bombers victorious four times. Until Saskatchewan and Hamilton hooked up in 1989, the 1958 game between the Bombers and Cats was considered the greatest Grey Cup ever played. The Bombers won 35-28. The teams clashed in the first overtime Cup in 1961 and the famous Fog Bowl the following year, the only game to be played over two days. Winnipeg won both, 21-14 and 28-27. They met again in the 1965 Wind Bowl, when Bud Grant conceded too many safeties and lost 22-16. The rivalry featured some of the greatest players and moments in Canadian football history, stars like Ticats John Barrow, Bernie Faloney, Hal Patterson Garney Henley, Don Sutherin and Angelo Mosca and Blue Bombers Bud Tinsley, Ken Ploen, Gerry James, Frank Rigney and Leo Lewis.

The rivalry featured none of the trash talk of today. Said Faloney, “They were great guys. I enjoyed playing against Winnipeg. They were tough, good football people.” Angelo Mosca who died recently, agreed. “There wasn’t a hate thing, just a really competitive attitude.” Added John Barrow, “The guys I played across from like Frank Rigney became dear friends.”

In 1984, the teams clashed in Edmonton with Cal Murphy’s Bombers winning 47-17. Winnipeg had trouble moving the ball in the first quarter and trailed 14-0 when quarterback Tom Clements lost a contact lens. Murphy replaced him with John Hufnagel who simplified things and got the Bombers moving. When Clements found another lens, he went back in and led his team to victory.

The West first challenged for the Grey Cup in 1921, Edmonton losing 23-0 to Toronto. Queen’s University beat the Edmonton Elks 23-0 the following year. Making their first of seven treks East in those days in 1923, the Regina Roughriders lost to Queens 54-0. Winnipeg lost 24-1 to the Ottawa Senators in 1925. All the games were down east with the hosts outscoring the visitors 216 to 29. No one expected the first time Hamilton and Winnipeg met in 1935 to be different. Instead, it turned out to be one of the most important milestones in Canadian football history.

Westerners had a shrewd general manager Joe Ryan who recruited in Minnesota and North Dakota. He couldn’t pay much – the salary total was $7400 – but he offered jobs in the depths of the Depression. His Americans won the West 10 years in a row. Four are in the Hall of Fame, Russ Rebholz, Greg Kabat, Dynamite Eddie James whose son Gerry would star for Winnipeg 25 years later and the greatest of them all, the Whirlwind from the West, Fritz Hanson.

On Dec. 7 , 6,404 Hamilton fans paid a total of $5,583.92 to watch their Tigers eat the Winnipegs raw. The temperature was +3C in a steady rain, the field was a sea of mud.

One of the greatest running backs of all time, it was Fritzie Hanson’s finest hour, overcoming the treacherous field conditions by returning punts for more than 300 yards on seven returns, including a memorable 78-yard touchdown run through the entire Hamilton team. Because official statistics weren’t kept then, Hanson is not credited with any Grey Cup records.

Not did he receive a bonus for winning the Cup. “My first year I got a straight $125,” he told me 41 years ago. “The next year I signed for $1,500 a season. It doesn’t sound like much but I was able to get a decent job at the time, and you, know $2,000 a year was pretty good pay in the Dirty Thirties.”

Although he would have admired Andrew Harris who ran for 136 yards in the West Final, he said, “I think football is going downhill. A guy runs 20 yards and they have to give him oxygen. We didn’t have any blocking so the onus was on the backs themselves. We ran with a lot of power.”

Winnipeg had won the West’s first Grey Cup, 18-12.